Expectations

    Funny place for an earth-shaking discussion it was, but there the forlorn seventeen-year-old sat on the cold bathroom tiles. Her mother leaned against the toilet bowl, her head tipped forward and her mind already dreading what she suspected. She had come running up the stairs in answer to a weak but anguished-sounding “Mo-o-o m.” Nora glanced at her watch; it was getting pretty close to when Ellie should leave for school. But with the exception of it being morning, the hour faded in significance. Morning – and Ellie clearly had thrown up. The evidence, that thin greenish appearance, gave it all away.
    With a despondency in her voice, Nora asked, “Ellie, are you pregnant? That looks a lot like morning sickness.” She paused, a lump in her throat making the words difficult. “But – but -- you can’t be!”
    “No. . . no, ma, I’m not.”
    “Ellie? What’s the truth?” It was starting to hit Nora with a thud, the agony, the awful realization that things would never be the same again.
    “umm, no, I said.”
    “El? Please tell me. I – I won’t get mad at you.”
    “ahh…..yeah, I guess I am” she whispered. Tears spilled over her eyelids and down her cheeks. “I’m sorry . . I’m so sorry.”
    “Oh Ellie, you can’t be!” she cried. A feeling of unbelief and utter sadness filled her being. “Whose baby is it? You’re not going steady with anyone.” She didn’t add, “and we’re Christians. This just doesn’t happen…”
    “But mom, you should know whose baby it is.” Long pause. “It’s Brad’s.” Her voice dropped in a tone of despair. Nora looked at her sorrowfully for a long moment, but Ellie was still not able to raise her eyes to her mother’s face. Finally the widowed mother reached out and embraced her youngest, her own baby. With tears in her eyes and a croak in her throat, she cried “Oh, no-o-o. There go all the expectations I had for you.”
    The words hung heavy in the air. Neither of them had gotten up from the bathroom floor, and the one-inch square white ceramic tiles were making indents on their legs. “Mom! What do you mean by that?”
    Nora’s tongue stumbled as she admitted, “Oh, you know,” her voice breaking, “senior year things like homecoming, and prom, and graduation. And then college, and all the doors that would open. .and now, . .now what? You’re a smart girl. .so many things you could have done in your future. Oh Ellie, what are we going to do?”
    Bleakness cloaked the girl’s face as the tears kept flowing. Her mother just shook her head sadly. Then she brightened just a little. “Let’s go to Walgreens and get a test kit. Then we can go for coffee downtown. You don’t need to go to school today. Okay?”
    Ellie nodded numbly, but she did rise off the floor and her shoulders imperceptibly squared as she headed for her bedroom and grabbed a sweater. By the time the two of them were sitting at a window table in the local café, they were able to relax a little and laugh, and they talked about what comes next. Back at home the test was positive – of course. There would be a baby born before June graduation.
    Expectations. The mother mulled on the mindless comment she had made on that bathroom floor, wondering what in the world made her blurt that out. It wasn’t even something she had ever consciously considered. Her only daughter after three sons, but the main heart-to-heart communication between them usually occurred driving to shopping excursions. No solid dream castles were ever constructed between them. Besides, good mothers didn’t lay that on their daughters anyway. Expectations? Hopes, maybe. But it was in the “landed gentry” that children’s futures were formed by their parents’ expectations. And that never did seem right. Should any person create expectations forming the future for any other person? What kind of “expectations” were legitimate expressions of hope for an offspring? Yet there it was between them. Nora couldn’t forget her impulsive comment.
    Nora Johnson watched the week unfold. Hurried, stuttering phone calls took place between Ellie and Brad. Ellie would turn away from her mother busying herself in the kitchen, and tuck the phone under her chin. “Mom is wondering if we are going to get married,” she heard Ellie say nervously.
    Ellie made an appointment with her high school counselor and explained her predicament. Both mother and daughter breathed sighs of relief for his understanding. He managed to work it out so that Ellie could finish her classes in January. She would still be able to graduate in June!
    A few weeks later Ellie came home from school more pensive than usual. “Mom,” she said. “We were talking about abortion in our sociology class today.” She hesitated. “I was the only one to speak against it. But I still spoke up.”
    “How did that make you feel, Ellie?”
    “Like I was standing alone against the world, I guess. But I knew I spoke from first-hand experience. I might even have said something like that. . I can’t remember exactly how it went.”
    “Good for you! Ah. . . have you thought about abortion, or – adoption?”
    “No, I couldn’t do that, Mom. It’s Brad’s baby too. What if we got together some day down the future?”
    Some day down the future came not so long after. It was a Saturday night, and Brad’s parents called from their far-south suburb, asking for a “family” confab. As Nora and Ellie and one of her brothers entered their living room, tension hung thick and silent in the air. The world was turning upside down for another seventeen-year-old too. Brad’s goals had been applauded by his parents. College, naturally, sports, probably more than one degree, a fast rise for a high-honors student. And now, what? Brad’s mother looked at her only son and blurted out, “Brad, what were you thinking?”
    There is not an adequate answer for that one, and he gave none. The teenagers went off to another room in the house to discuss their options. When they returned Brad looked down at the floor, and in more of a mumble than plain English announced “We’re going to get married.”
    And they did, but not right away. Ellie wanted to finish high school first. There went that “expectation”! The picture of a slender young lady floating down the aisle of their church in filmy white evaporated. But there is no real way to camouflage a six and a half month gestation. They planned their wedding with Brad’s gentle, understanding pastor. Lots of music, sixty guests at the ceremony and dinner following. Ellie moved in with Brad’s family, as Brad scrambled to finish high school. Just two kids, they were, facing a huge adult world all too soon.
    Right on time the baby was born. Brad and Ellie were a team as they went through labor and natural childbirth. With Katie’s arrival, the young parents never seemed to look back. College? They managed their class schedules so that one was always home to care for their daughter. Five years after her high school graduation, Ellie walked across the stage and received her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature. Again she walked down the aisle heavy with child, this one planned and anticipated with delight. The same day, Brad received his first master’s degree. Faith remained important to them, and they were not hesitant to give thanks to God for all that happened.
    As she looked back Nora would not have imagined Ellie’s life unfolding the way it did. Still regretting that crazy line about expectations that she pronounced on the bathroom floor that day sixteen years ago, she realized that Ellie had, in her own way, grown into a godly, beautiful woman.
    Best of all, her life was beyond any expectations her mother Nora could possibly have pictured.